walking daily in the shadow of the cross

Video Game manufacturer has raked in $550,000,000 in just one week of sales through the newest edition of the popular “Call of Duty” video game! Whoa! If that doesn’t get your attention, I’m not sure what will.

Those of you who know me should know me well enough to realize I’m not the type to have knee-jerk reactions against video games and movies. Generally speaking, I keep my opinions on such media fairly unbiased, but with such hype around this game.

I can’t help wondering how many teenagers are going to enter the Armed Forces only to realize “it wasn’t like this in the video game” when they or someone they know gets injured in war. I just have this gut feeling that games like this (and similar games) reenact such lifelike violence and warfare that they impersonalize war to our detriment.

There are some people who say paintball and airsoft are similar in minimalizing the reality of war and cause people to be more violent – I disagree… for the most part. So I’m not typically prone to encourage banning certain video games… that’s just not my style. But this is different.

Check out the trailer below. Notice how life-like the graphics are and how vividly they re-create warlike scenarios. Parents, please be cautious with this game. This is the type of game that your son will play for hours and hours and hours on end, is this really what you want consuming his thoughts for so much of the day (while he’s playing, but also while he’s looking forward to playing it when school-work’s done)?

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” Philippians 4:8